Having and Keeping, Paperback/David Watts

Descriere

The opening lines of -The Body of My Brother, - demonstrate the quality and depth of David Watts' reflective imagination. -First it belonged to my mother / or seemed to, / stuffed into her / like a foot in a sock. / Then it took care of itself / filling out / into home runs, high jumps. / There were times / it must have been afraid / hiding in a bunker / in South Viet Nam.- From heated wavelengths, Watts' quiet poems couple with their subjects in an intimacy so strong, you can smell their crackle and spark. When it comes to singing the uncontrollable messiness of family life, growing pain and growth; the stickiness of love life, the clumsiness of loss, the pleasures of cranky togetherness, this little book takes the cake. Take the blues called -Empty- (-Walls and a floor. Five pots / in the cupboard. He didn't mind / the furniture missing. That / he could change. The other missings / he couldn't fix. He watched /as the fear of loneliness / changed places with loneliness.- Human loneliness and disconnect -- alongside the undying appetite and need for love -- deliver the theme-song for HAVING AND KEEPING, a poetry celebration to which I came early, stayed late, and linger. From -Affair- I took away another snapshot: -He came for the bed-mate /but was given a companion, one / who opened her door / every time he asked. She made / the emptiness under his rib cage / go away ... the clock slowing / its hands, the bonsai in the window/ beautiful in its narrow soil.- --Al Young, California's former poet laureate; Distinguished Professor, MFA in Writing Program, California College of the Arts, San Francisco In his newest volume, David Watts draws us back to the wellspring of origins: -They made me / out of farming and music / embryo / with two lines tangled.- From the lush pastoral of his roots to the complexities and delights of relationships and parenting, these poems are gorgeous lyrical arrows sent out in many directions at once, never satisfied with the ease of conclusio